Tableau Prep Help

Licensing Tableau Prep Conductor for Tableau Server

Version: Current

Tableau Prep Conductor is licensed through the Data Management Add-on, on a per Deployment basis, which may be User-Based or Core-Based. A Deployment includes a licensed production Tableau Server installation and licensed non-production Tableau Server installations that support the production installation. For more information on Deployment, see the EULA Documentation.

The Data Management Add-on can only be activated on a licensed Tableau Server Deployment. For more information on how to purchase the Data Management Add-on and get the product key, contact your account manager.

When the product key is active and enabled, you can publish flows to the server, schedule or run flows, manage and monitor flows.

When the Data Management product key is removed or deactivated, or if the Data Management Product Key expires, then the ability to publish, schedule, run flows, or receive flow alerts is disabled. You will not be able to see the flows, but the data will remain on the Tableau Server and will not be deleted.

Note: If your Tableau Server product key is still active and valid, you can download the flows using the Tableau Server REST API. For more information, see Flow Methods.

How Data Management Add-on licensing works

User-Based:

A User-Based license metric allows you to deploy Tableau Server on a single computer or on multiple computers in a cluster. Each user that accesses Tableau Server must be licensed. Administrators add users and license them. The first Creator or Explorer product key that you add to Tableau Server activates Tableau Server, and will be used by a Server Administrator.

Data Management Add-on product key enables Tableau Prep Conductor at the deployment level and Tableau Prep Conductor is licensed for all the users that are already licensed for Tableau Server.

Core-Based:

A Core-Based license metric imposes no constraints on the number of user accounts in Tableau Server. Instead, the license specifies the maximum number of computer cores on which you can run Tableau Server.

Typically, the total number of cores in all the computers should not exceed the total number that the Tableau Server license allows. When you add the Data Management product key to your Tableau server, it includes a specific number of Tableau Prep Conductor cores. In this scenario, the total number of cores on all computers should not exceed the total number that theTableau Server license and the Data Management license together allow.

In this topic we will refer to the cores licensed through Tableau Server license as Tableau Server cores, and the cores licensed through Data Management Add-on as Tableau Prep Conductor cores.

Here are some concepts that apply to how licensing is applied in a Core-Based metric:

A node can be licensed by only one of type –Tableau Server Cores or Tableau Prep Conductor cores.

The Tableau Prep Conductor cores are applied to any node that is dedicated to running Tableau Prep Conductor and when the Backgrounder on that node is set to run only flow background jobs. In this case, the total number of cores on this node cannot exceed the number of cores that Data Management Add-on license allows. If this node has any other licensed process besides Tableau Prep Conductor, Backgrounder and Data Engine enabled, then this node will require and use a Tableau Server core license.

As mentioned above, the Backgrounder node role also affects which license is used by a node. For example, if the Backgrounder node role is set to run jobs of all types (this is the default), then this node will be licensed through the Tableau Server cores. For more information on node roles, see Node Roles in Tableau Server.

See the following table and decision flow to understand how a node is licensed:

If a node has...

the core on the node is counted towards...

the node is licensed using...

one of the following processes enabled:

Application Server

Backgrounder (node role is set to run all jobs)

File Store

Data Server

VizQL Server

Total count of Tableau Server cores.

Tableau Server cores.

only the following processes enabled:

Tableau Prep Conductor

Backgrounder (node role is set to run only flows)

Data Engine

Total number of Tableau Prep Cores purchased through the Data Management Add-on.

Note: If there are no Tableau Prep Conductor cores available, but Tableau Server cores are available, then Tableau Server cores are used.

Tableau Prep Cores included in the Data Management Add-on.

Note: If there are no Tableau Prep Conductor cores available, but Tableau Server cores are available, then Tableau Server cores are used.